Backpacking

Wwwwwwoooooooowww What a blessed trip!! God has blessed us every day here in Jericho. And on these last two “weekends” we had a chance to go to a such beautiful places. 

After a lazy rainy day on monday, the sun shined again on tuesday to make our trip more worthy. Tor Arne, our mentor and also our guide, picked us up early in the morning and we drove for forty minutes south in a road very close to the Dead Sea until we get to Massada.

I wanna tell you the history of that place cuz it´s very interesting and I really like it: Herodes, the king, built this fortifications on the top of a desert plateau overlooking to Dead Sea as a refuge for himself. After the destruction of the second Temple(in Jerusalem) by the Romans, some jewish rebels fled from Jerusalem to this place, Massada. 

Then, the Romans built some camps surrounded the plateau planning to attack the rebels. But after climbing until the top and destroying the wall, the romans met all the rebels dead. They commit suicide during the night to avoid being caught by the romans. Can you imagine that?  Very nice place with very good history.

We spent one hour climbing the mountain until the top. Of course, the norwegians spent 20 minutes. During this long way up, we had a funny meeting with some girls from Uruguay. When we told them we were brazilians they sang: “delicia delicia, assim você me mata, ai se eu te pego ai ai se eu te pegoo”. Incredible how this stupid tune is being sang all over the world.

The view from the top was veery nicee, nothing more than the orange from the desert contrasting with the blue of the Dead Sea, perfeito. Very interesting to know how they built a whole town on the top of a desert plateau more than two thousand years ago. It could be one of the seven wonders of the world easily.

Now, this last weekend, junior and I went  up north to Tabarias. Four different public transports until we get there. In one of them (from Azaria to Jerusalem), we all had to get out from the bus and show our passaports to the cops in the check-point. Everyone who wants to go from WestBank to Israeli territories has to be allowed to keep travelling through these check-points. Two hours late we got there and we saw the Galilee Sea and the Jordan River. Yes, really nice to see where Jesus had been for some years living and teaching with his disciples but the Jordan River looks like Canal 6 in Santos haha.

After knowing these places, we went to a town close to Nazareth to meet Carlos and Fernanda (a brazilian couple who is also working as volunteers). We had a good time with them and they drove us to the hostel in Nazareth. I think I´ve never been in a so weird hostel. We were shocked. Haha. Weird people, old place, funny decoration. We just spent one night there, thanks gosh, a parade tava caindo aos pedaços. Early in the morning we left to see some biblical places and then to take a bus to Haifa.  This place was worthy of all money I have spent. It looks we were in other country. Pubs, beach and a reaaly good “hostel”.

We stayed in a Norwegian house called Beit Scandinavia. They have this place to host travelers from all over the world with very nice rooms, bathrooms with hot water, good breakfast and dinner. It was perfect. It was almost being home again, relaxing, very confortable. We met some guys from Germany during the dinner and we took a long walk in the evening, got some beers and exercised our mussels on the public equipment close to the beach. It was so good to hear the sound of the waves and to feel the fresh atmosphere that comes from the sea again. On the next morning I had the brilliant idea of trying to touch the Mediterranean Sea, but one big wave came and got me. I had to walk all the day long with my socks and shoes wet and full of sand. So silly idea. My mom would say “mas é burro mesmo”. Haha But it was a very good day tough. We wanted to be there for some more days but we didn’t have time to do it.

I´m so thankful and blessed of knowing these places. Enjoy the photos!  Five days left!     

kids clubs in Jericho

Sorry norwegians and aussies, but this time im gonna writte in Portuguese. But you can still enjoy the photos.

Só pra dar uma geral do que rolou durante a quarta e quinta semana na Palestina. Kids club e Al kamar durante os dias de semana continuaram complicados e sem ordem nenhuma. Mas cheguei num ponto em que não dou mais importância em formatos, regras e horários. Até porque, pelo que parece eles também não dão. Mas devida importância tem sido dada ás experiências que temos passado cada dia com eles. Já prefiro tentar conversar, dar risada e brincar do que tentar torna-los em rockstars durante uma hora maçante de aula em que não se produz nada. Vendo que alguns deles tem habilidade e talento para música, tentamos de diversas formas fazer com que eles toquem alguma coisa pra se sentir bem. Mas é triste saber que estes serão os últimos dias em que eles terão acesso a um violão. Então durante essas duas semanas minha atuação variou entre deixa-los se divertir com o violão e me divertir com eles em variados jogos tentando demonstrar carinho e amor.

No último sábado, tivemos mais um Zaccheus house. Dez da manhã a molecada jah começava a chegar no centro (que é a minha casa). Estas manhãs são realmente intensas. Eles num obedecem. Não sei se é porque não querem ou se é porque não entendem inglês. Mas esse sábado foi engraçado. Tínhamos planejado quase tudo na noite anterior. Jogos, louvor e sharing. Uma historia boa foia de um dos jogos que inventamos de jogar. O nome do jogo eh Zip. É um jogo em roda que você tem que falar zip zap ou boing pra continuar a jogar. Porém, por algum motivo, ninguém queria falar zip. Os meninos rindo, as meninas com vergonha e os liderem falando pra gente trocar de palavra. Quando demos conta, descobrimos que zip significava “países baixos” em árabe. Putess..que mico. Tivemos que trocar o nome do jogo, ficamos com vergonha, mas continuamos o jogo. haha

Depois tivemos um momento de louvor cantando “O senhor tem muitos filhos, muitos filhos ele temm, eu sou um deles, você também, louvemos ao senhor Braço direito!..” Muito comédia, com direito ao Big boss (um dos moleques da vila) dançando muuuito engraçado. Passado o worship time foi a vez do sharing. Eu tava de responsável desta vez. Foi um desafio pra mim falar pras crianças. Não sabia o que falar, como falar, tava nervoso, tudo em inglês, mas acabou dando certo. Deus tem abençoado nosso trabalho e agente espera que de alguma forma elas possam entender e algum dia aceitar Jesus.

Uma da tarde acabou o clubinho. Todo mundo foi embora e só ficaram os líderes do Zaccheus house e o casal da Jordânia que está morando com agente. Tivemos um churrasco árabe com direito a carne de porco e umas coisas diferentes. Eles fizeram agente comer até dizer chega. Muito bom. Terminamos a semana bem alimentados.

Agora falando de mim..uma dessas semanas bateu uma saudade do Brasil e da galera. Muita saudade da galera, comida, praia. Sentimentos misturados entre Brasil Noruega e Palestina. Daqui onze dias estaremos voltando pra Noruega e espero que Deus continue nos guiando ensinando cada vez mais. Aí vai uns pedidos de oração, se tiver tempo e vontade.....:

Povo árabe e muçulmano que está muito distante do evangelho.

Líderes da Bible Society na Palestina e em Israel

Mais um semestre na Noruega.

Sabedoria pra tomar decisões pro próximo semestre.

Casal de amigos Serginho e Nathaly que estão a caminho do campo missionário. Que Deus abençoe a vida deles e de muitos que eles venham a alcançar.

...próximo post: Massada e trip pro norte de Israel.

Mount of Temptation

Ok, now Im gonna tell you some stories that happened to us. One of them is about our friend in the mount of temptation. This story begins when we first got to the mount of temptation. It was 8.00pm when we decided to go there. So, Jonas, Junior and I walked for 6km from our place until the bottom of the mountain. When we got on the top we met a guy who works as a guard during the night. He lives in Jericho and works 6 days a week on the mount of temptation. He also has a banana Plantação and produces his own cigarettes. He smokes 40 per day, but he says he is still healthy haha.. He was very kind, giving us coffee and some fruits during the conversation. After one and a half hours there we went back home.

Jonas had been there one more time before we come back again. But this time we planned to sleep over there. So we prepared some pancakes to bring with us, some fruits and instant soup. Backpacks, sleeping bags, food, winter clothes and torches were all we needed.  The journey had started. Seven kilometers until the top. It was not cold, especially during the steep way to the top. We arrived there and he was sleeping inside of the restaurant. He woke up and invited us to come in. We hung out until 3am. He doesn´t speak to much english, but it was enough to be understandable. This time we got in interesting talks. As a good Palestinian, he is a Muslim. He told us about Islam and what they do believe. We didn´t get too much because he doesn´t have words enough to explain, but we got that they do not believe that Jesus is son of God and He was crucified by the jews. We tried to tell him what we do believe. But when I said that Jesus came to our sin, he told us that someone has changed the real scriptures and what the bible says is not right. So, we changed the topic haha. The religion is quite strong among the arabs, it is so hard to make them to listen to our truth.

After a while we decided to sleep. He told us to sleep inside of the restaurant and to be careful with the video cameras haha.  So we prepared our “beds” on the floor and in ten minutes we fell asleep. Two hours later Jonas woke me up. We had to leave because Foad was going home. So we went outside and we waited until the sunrise. Jonas slept again, but I didn´t. I was not too comfortable. Around 6.30 the sun was going up. It was a nice view from above the town. We took some photos and we came back home. On the way back home, two religious muslims tried to make us accept some Muslim theories, and to repeat some things they said about God, in Arabic. But this is another story. This was our adventure on the mount of temptation. May God touch their lives and make them to understand His grace and mercy.  xoxo